Military Review English Edition January-February 2015 | Page 136

levels. In the absence of orders and communications,
and even with the death of key leaders, young leaders
at the squad and team level continued to function and
display initiative and bravery in accomplishing their
mission and taking care of their Marines.
In addition to capturing the stress, chaos, and
confusion of siege warfare, this work also relays
extraordinary acts of individual bravery. Examples
include the story of Army Special Forces Sgt. 1st Class
Eugene Ashley Jr., who saved a Special Forces detachment from certain annihilation. He would be the only
recipient of the Medal of Honor (posthumously) for
actions at Khe Sanh. Almost as heroic were the efforts
of the pilots and air crews who supported Khe Sanh.
Fighting limited visibility and constant artillery and
small-arms fires, these aviators regularly risked their
lives to evacuate the wounded and bring in follow-on
troops and supplies.
As stated above, one of the intents for this work was
to examine how the battle at Khe Sanh affected the
lives of those Marines who fought there. The author
uses the epilogue of this work to accomplish this final
task. As can be imagined, some of the terrible mental
and physical wounds of such a battle healed slowly, if at
all. The reader will discover that some of these stories
ended in triumph while others ended in unfortunate
tragedy. However, what is reinforced in the epilogue
and makes this book worth reading is that it shows the
incredible valor and sacrifice the Marines at Khe Sanh
made for their mission and each other.
Lt. Col. Wm. Kenna McCurry, U.S. Army,
Retired, Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

VANISHED: The Sixty-Year Search for the Missing
Men of World War II
Wil S. Hylton, Riverhead Books, New York, 2013,
288 pages

W

il Hylton’s Vanished is a mystery story replete with many classic mystery elements,
including a troubled and eccentric, yet
brilliant, sleuth as the lead protagonist. There are innocent victims, illusory clues that lead to dead ends, and
other clues that may only be understood long after they
are first discovered. There is even pirates’ gold, or at
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least “Yamashati’s Gold,” involved. The antagonists are
the most difficult of all for they are time, the elements,
and human intervention.
In short, Vanished has all the components of any
spellbinding piece of fiction. Hylton’s narrative moves
at speed without regard to chronology, focusing instead on bringing together past and present. However,
Vanished is much more; it is a compelling human
story of courage, fear, loss, hope, persistence, and
dedication spanning some 60 years. It is also a tribute
to the human spirit of those who were lost and those
who sought them.
So who were the victims? They were young airmen
who died on bombing missions mounted in the late
summer of 1944 that aimed to “soften” up the Japanese
defenders of the Palau Islands, including Pelelieu. The
campaign in the Palau Islands lasted some 18 months.
All told, B-24 Liberator bombers dumped more than
a million pounds of bombs on the islands. However,
the Marines who fought at Pelelieu could attest that
the effort fell short. Vanished is about three B-24s and
their crews that were shot down during three of the
many missions carried out by Liberators assigned to
the “Long Rangers,” more formally known as the 307th
Bombardment Group. The three Liberators went down
in and around the waters and the Islands of Koror and
Babeldaob. To be specific, some pieces wound up in the
sea and others landed on the shore.
Vanished is a fascinating account of one man’s
conviction that these men deserved better than missing-in-action status more than 50 years after they were
last seen. This conviction that they had to be found and
brought home led ultimately to the families of one crew
in particular learning the fate of their young men.
Pat Scannon is in some ways an unlikely sleuth of
affaires militaire. A successful medical researcher with
a Ph.D. in chemistry to hang alongside his medical
degree, Scannon founded the company for which he
worked. Although the son of a soldier, the Army (or
any other service for that matter) never appealed to
Scannon, whose life as an Army brat left him cold
toward what he perceived soldiers were all about.
Nevertheless, Scannon more or less stumbled onto the
mystery that captivated him for the better part of 20
years. He began by initially becoming interested in a
project conceived by a coworker to find Japanese gold
alleged F